Small talk

Page Tools

Jennifer Lilburn with her children Kathleen, 1, and Lily, 2.Picture:Wayne Taylor

For most women, telling their boss they are pregnant is a cringe-worthy experience. Bernadette Clohesy finds out why.

No matter how you say it, telling people
you're pregnant gets a reaction.
It's usually joy and excitement — so
why do so many women dread making
the announcement to their boss? Most
women still feel guilty because they'll be taking
time off and worse, hope to return part-time.

Jodie Hodder, 33, a highly qualified nurse
who works in hospital demand management,
has two children: Grace, who's almost 3, and
Lachlan, nine months. Before Grace's birth
she was managing a project at a large public
hospital. When she returned to work after
maternity leave, her decision to work just
three days a week resulted in her having to
take a lesser position, although she stayed on
the same pay rate. Hodder looked for another
job in her area of expertise and secured a secondment
to the Department of Human Services.

"I just started the new job and I found
out a week later that I was pregnant," she says.
"We weren't planning on trying for at least
another six months." She finally plucked up
the courage to tell her boss when she was 18
weeks pregnant.

AdvertisementAdvertisement

No one could accuse Hodder of not taking
her work seriously. She took six months'
maternity leave after Grace's birth. And with
her second pregnancy she left work at 36
weeks and Lachlan was born one week later. "I
was planning to get organised and have a
rest," she laughs, "so I missed out on that."

She's just started back two days a week. The
children go to a creche on those days and
Hodder is finding it much easier the second
time around. "I had lots of confidence going
back to work this time," she says.

She's also learning to stop apologising for
things she can't change. "I got called home last
week from work because Lachlan was upset
and it was the first time I've thought, 'OK, I
just have to go'," she says. "My boss said, 'Can
you work on this at home and email it to me?'
And I was planning to do that, but once I got
the two of them home I realised that it just
wasn't possible."

The biggest plus for a new mother is having
an understanding boss who knows what
it's all about. "Some bosses aren't keen on you
working part-time; they want you to come
back full-time" Hodder says. "But my boss has
a child the same age as Grace and she said, 'If
I can't support you in part-time work then I
don't know who can'." Her boss's attitude has
been a big boost to Hodder's confidence.

"Coming back part-time I didn't feel like I was
contributing as much as I used to," she says.
"You don't feel as worthwhile as a worker. But
she was saying things to me, 'You have skills
that we really need here'."

Not every pregnant woman has a boss like
Hodder's. Although it's 20 years since the federal
Sex Discrimination Act (1984) was passed,
there are still some employers who are unhappy
about having pregnant women or new
mothers in the workplace. The discrimination
that pregnant women face ranges from the
very subtle to the not so subtle. On its website,
the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission lists some of the more outrageous
cases that have come before it over the past few years. Under the heading Harsh Realities,
there are instances that include: a receptionist
who was told by her employer to get an
abortion — or resign; a casual retail employee
who was also pressured to resign because she
was suffering morning sickness; and a worker
with a large finance company who was demoted
while on maternity leave. In all these cases,
the employer was found to be at fault and
forced to pay compensation.

In 2000, a national inquiry into this issue published its
findings under the title: Pregnant and Productive: It's a right not a
privilege to work while pregnant
. In new legislation following
this report, employers are to be banned from
asking women during job interviews about
their plans to have children. Other simple
measures like providing adequate toilet
breaks, proper seating and access to larger
uniforms (or not being required to wear a uniform)
are recommended.

Physiotherapist Catherine Brooks, 31, is
expecting her first baby at the end of this
month and, despite the fact that there is quite
a bit of physical activity involved in her job,
she's found her workplace (Caulfield General
Medical Centre) very accommodating. "My
boss was very excited for me," she says. "She
called me into her office and went through
everything I needed to know: what I had to do
in informing human resources; how long the
maternity leave is; how I should book into
child care immediately. I was in her office for
about an hour. It was all very helpful to me."

Brooks's colleagues are excited for her and
have offered to help. "They asked lots of questions
when I first told them, although back
then I didn't need that much support. But now
I'm showing more, they've all been very supportive.
I haven't stopped manually handling
(helping patients stand and walk) but I might
ask a second staff member to help."

There's still a lot of opposition to mothers
returning to work while their children are
young but statistics from a 1998 ABS study
show that 72 per cent of women on maternity
leave return to work within 12 months — and
employers have to realise this is the way it is
and set about making the transition less of a
nightmare for the many women involved.

Jennifer Lilburn, 42, has two children: Lily,
2, and Kathleen, who has just turned 1. She's
been employed by Parks Victoria for 13 years
and was as a regional manager before she had
her first baby. She returned to work when Lily
was eight months old. "I think that I went
back a bit too soon," she says now. "I wasn't
really ready to go back but I was a bit concerned
about my career and where I'd fit in
the organisation and I guess I was feeling a bit
redundant. None of those things were things
the organisation put on me; they were completely
unsubstantiated. But when you're in an
emotional state, you don't really have control
over your feelings."

Like Jodie Hodder, Lilburn found it easier
to return to work the second time around. She
has a nanny for the children now and she's on
secondment to the Western Coastal Board,
where she works a four-day week as an executive
officer. She admits that becoming a mother
has definitely had an effect on her career
but she's philosophical about it. "Before I was
pregnant I thought that society, and the workplace
in general, was now at a place where you
didn't have to compromise your career to have
a family," she says. "But I'm now certain that
if you don't compromise your career then you
compromise your family."

But she wasn't always this confident that
she could achieve the right balance especially
when she came back after Lily's birth. "I was
finding the whole challenge of juggling the
family and the workplace and trying to be
totally committed to everybody was difficult,"
she says.

She felt so strongly about the difficulties
she and other women she knew were
having that she held a workshop on the subject
at Parks Victoria and interviewed 40
women in similar situations. She then wrote a
paper expressing the concerns of women and
their managers and gives advice to both. She
presented it to her manager, the chief executive
of Parks Victoria. "He thought it was very
positive and encouraged me to send it elsewhere,"
she recalls. Apart from the government
departments she sent it to, Lilburn
received inquiries from a number of outside
organisations who'd heard about the paper
and wanted a copy. It's obvious there are many
people looking for help on this issue.

Karen Mitchell, 39, who was already working as a
management consultant in organisational change switched her focus to issues
regarding women, motherhood and careers after becoming a mother just over three
years ago. (She now has two children, Benjamin, 3, and Ellie-Mae, 1, and two
teenage stepsons). As well as writing a book on the subject, Careers and
Motherhood - Challenges and Choices, she also runs Kalmor Consulting,
which specialises in assisting women in their
return to work and advising organisations on
how best to manage them.

"We actually run programs for managers
on how to manage women more effectively,"
she explains. "Because with a lot of views of
women in the workplace, people feel that it's
just not OK to talk about it any more. So we
depoliticise it; we get the issues onto the table;
we talk about some of the difficulties people
are experiencing."

She's seen that many people
still don't accept women working part-time
as being a viable option. "For example, when
they say, 'I'm going home now' and you have
someone making a subtle comment like, 'Do
you have to? We're in the middle of a tender,'
it really impacts on a woman."

Mitchell has found that one of the best
ways to bring about change is to start at the
top. "I've spoken to a number of CEOs and
chairmen," she says. "It's about attitudes within
the organisation. They're very interested in
cultural change at the moment." Many of the
big organisations are historically male dominated
and this affects the company's culture.
Mitchell has observed that males and females
often approach things differently within the
workplace.

"Males and females have different ways of
communicating and slightly different ways of
decision making," she says. "Last week I
spoke to the top 150 women at the ANZ Bank
about 'the rules of the game'. In that male
code of conduct, you just don't justify. Women
do it a lot, and it undermines their power. I
can give you 10 more rules like that."

Mitchell says that if we can get workplaces
to truly adapt — so that there's no more fulltime
or part-time, just people working all sorts
of different ways — then women will be able
to have challenging roles and have families.
And, as for women, she says, they have to
think about all this before they have a family.

"A lot of women are naive in that they spend
so much time getting their qualifications and
building up their careers, but they don't do the
research into the best way to manage a career
and a family. They just think, 'Oh well, I know
it's going to be hard. I'll just tough it out'."

"You have to lock in your return-to-work
conditions," she says, "and talk to your partner
at home about how you're going to look after
the baby. Share all of this stuff before you're in
a vulnerable position."

NEGOTIATING PREGNANCY AT WORK

■ The maternal world is divided between
those who think you should keep pregnancy
secret as long as possible and those who like
to announce it on an all-staff email the day
after the blue line appears. Talk to other
mothers in the organisation to check if
pregnancy means an immediate end to pay
rises and challenging work and make your
decision accordingly.

■ Check the company's maternity leave
entitlements and be clear on them long
before you announce your pregnancy. You
may need a gentle reminder of your rights.

■ Leave your planned return date and workhours
flexible. Many a first-time mother has
announced they absolutely, definitely, will
return to work full-time within three months
of the baby's birth, only to discover they
haven't managed to wash their hair in that
time, let alone think about work.

■ Before going on maternity leave, arrange
to be included in newsletter and email
distribution to stay informed of job
opportunities and significant changes in the
organisation. While on maternity leave, keep
in close contact with immediate bosses
about return dates, flexible and part-time
work.

■ Don't be afraid of putting forward your
own solutions to working part-time – or
suggesting a new role that could work for
you and your employer.